


I Want To Share Your Horizon, And See The Same Sunrise

by Salomonderiel



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, cavity-inducing sweetness, sleepy coulson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salomonderiel/pseuds/Salomonderiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there ever was a fraternization policy in SHIELD, it was abandoned long ago. But Fury still refuses to permit agents in a serious relationship to go on the same mission - something about lessening the risk of agents becoming emotionally compromised. </p>
<p>It doesn't matter, though. Phil and Clint manage to get by.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want To Share Your Horizon, And See The Same Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Based on, and title from the song Jet Lag by Simple Plan. I really recommend a listen.

Phil’s curled up on the futon he’s currently using as a bed when his phone goes off. He comes round slower than he’d like to admit; eyes sticking shut, and shoulder creaking as he twists himself around to grab the cell from the floor by his feet. Some point in the night he’d managed to completely flip himself around, head where his feet had been, and how he’d done that with seven stitches and a leg barely out of a cast was a complete mystery to him. But then, he’d always been a restless sleeper when in a bed that was either not his own, or empty. This damned futon was both.

He groaned when he saw the digits flashing on his cell’s screen – 12:23. Fuck it all. If it was Fury ordering him to relocate, the director could wait til morning... except Coulson knew he wouldn’t. It was days like this he was sorely tempted to turn dark side. He bet that terrorists didn’t get wake-up calls at midnight.

Curses and snappy, passive-aggressive retorts lining up at the tip of his tongue, he flicked the phone open, rubbing his eyes with his spare hand as he said, “Hello?”

“Morning, sweetheart.”

And any trace of annoyance fell from him, replaced by a simple smile, and a cat-like stretch before he curled back up, this time around the phone pressed to his ear. “Morning?” he echoed, letting a slight hint of irritation show because, happy to hear that voice that he might be, it was no excuse for Clint to get off free. “It’s twenty minutes past fucking midnight, Barton.”

“Shit, is it? Where are you now?”

“Krakow,” Phil sighed. Three countries in four days. And he felt like every minute of it. “The target moved to quick, so the team had to follow.”

“Lead by you?”

Phil hummed into the phone. Clint’s answering sigh, weary and with an old trace of irritation, made him smile slightly wider.

“You’re getting close to him, though, right?” The faint sound of desperation in his voice mirrored everything that Phil was feeling. He curled up tighter, the bed feeling emptier than it had before, after this reminder of what he was missing, and the longing for it he constantly felt.

“Whoever said it was a ‘he’, Barton?” Phil asked, voice as deadpan as he could make it with only five hours sleep to speak of in the last 48 hours. And countless cups of coffee.

Clint chuckled. “Just making an assumption, sir. Forgive my impudence. Just catch the bastard quick, would you?”

“What about you?” Phil asked, eyes closed, imagining whatever cheap hotel room Clint would be in. Japan – probably had the A/C on high, usual sleeveless top if not in his field uniform, ready and waiting to go. Unlike Phil, he wouldn’t be curled up, but stretched out on the bed, one hand behind his head and the other wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder. It was a familiar image, comforting. “Shot your man yet?”

“How do _you_ know it’s a man, Coulson?”

“Because my security clearance is higher than yours, specialist,” Phil said, words slurring with exhaustion. He wasn’t going to make his excuses to sleep, though. It’d be a waste.

“D’you really want to start a game of ‘mine is bigger than yours’, Agent?” Clint asked, lightly teasing. When Phil only smiled again, distinctly lacking the energy to laugh, Clint chuckled quietly himself. “Not been sleeping well, then?” he asked.

“Nah,” Phil admitted easily. “You?”

“Neither.”

It was a small thing to hear, that Clint didn’t sleep well without him, but it sent a small, selfish burst of happiness to his heart.

“I can see the stars from where I am, out the window,” Clint said softly, causing Phil to open his eyes and look towards his own window – the black sky barely showed any stars, with the city lights and thin cloud cover. “They don’t make quite as good a view, though, knowing you’re seeing different ones.”

“I know what you mean,” Phil admitted. Even if he couldn’t see the stars himself, he understood what Clint was saying – he felt the same thing, each time he saw the sun rising, knowing it had risen long ago for Clint. It didn’t – never had, and probably never would – feel right, seeing a different sunrise or sunset to Clint.

“I keep having too much free time,” Clint added, voice still going quietly, calmly. “Natasha takes on so much of the action, all I do is wait for a call telling me the time and place. I wish I was busier. It’d be easier if I was busy, didn’t have time to think. About you.”

“Sitwell kept trying to talk to me on the plane, on the way here,” Phil told him, his side of the same story, “didn’t work. I think he realised, he gave up after a while and left me to it. I miss you too much.”

“I miss you too. I love you. Too much, god, this can’t be conducive to my focus on the job,” Clint said, half laughing as he spoke.

“Perhaps we should try that argument with Fury,” Phil suggested, smiling at the idea, but knowing there was never a chance. Couples were never sent on the same mission, a strict policy that hadn’t been broken yet. Not that it ever stopped them from trying.

“Can’t hurt.”

Phil smiled again, sighing out, stifling a yawn. “I love you too, by the way,” he added, almost as an afterthought. He knew Clint would understand how that interpretation was far from the truth.

“I should hope so.”

Another smile, and another pause where neither of them spoke, just the tired, drawn-out breaths from both of them audible down the line.

“What time is it, where you are?” Phil muttered, unable to focus his mind into doing math.

“Half seven, in the morning,” Clint said. “God, I’m keeping you up, aren’t I? Sorry, you probably want to sleep-”

“Hush,” Phil cut in, and even though he tried to make his voice sharp, it still came out soft and affectionate. “I wasn’t getting much sleep, anyway. Tell me how your day was.”

Clint didn’t talk immediately – there was a second, where Phil could imagine him smiling, settling down, closing his eyes and relaxing, before he started to go through all the nuances of the past few days, where Phil hasn’t been there. He was speaking softly, but just loud enough for Phil to hear if he set the phone down on the pillow beside him.

Slowly, what Clint’s saying stopped making sense, stopped being a story and just became a voice, a comforting background noise, and slowly, Phil could fall asleep.

When he woke up, just before the sunrise, his phone was flashing, telling him of a missed message.

_Had to go – target finally, definitely located. Sorry I couldn’t stay to hear you wake up. See you at home, soon._

_I love you_.

Phil smiled, before closing the phone. He rose to his feet, and dropped the phone into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket that was hanging on the back of the door. It fell comfortably into place beside the picture of Clint that he’d taken several years ago.

Fully awake, washed and dressed, Phil hurried from the old hotel to rendezvous with Sitwell, the phone and the photo a consistent, heavy weight against his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
